My visit to the London Art Fair was brief this year as my energy levels are still low but I was so pleased to have made it. One of the highlights for me was Encounters, a section of small and new galleries. April Contemporary , one of these, presented YOU ARE HERE 510’30 36″ N […]
Artists
Nigel Cooke at PACE London
Visiting Nigel Cooke’s recent solo show at PACE London was something of a surprise – I don’t know what I had expected but it was different to what I’d thought. It’s the contrast between what we see on a screen and the reality in the flesh. The brushstrokes in his oil paintings were more textured […]
Cezanne at Tate Modern
The thing about blockbuster shows is that you’re under pressure to take everything in while being crowded on all sides. It therefore took a second, more relaxed, visit to the large Cezanne exhibition at Tate Modern for me to really see the work properly. People rave about his still lives and landscapes but some of […]
Cluster at the Bargehouse Oxo Tower, London
Cluster, an exhibition at the Oxo Bargehouse was a real mixed bag (as so many group shows are). Perhaps that’s why the title was selected? There were some interesting artists to discover so here are a few of the pieces that spoke to me. Gentrification (Commercial Genocide/The Message) by Shaquille Keith is a dual piece […]
Soheila Sokhanvari’s Rebel Rebel at Barbican Curve
This exhibition of paintings by UK-based Iranian artist Soheila Sokhanvari celebrates and commemorates inspirational creative Iranian women. She uses the painstaking medium of egg tempera and traditional miniature painting techniques for these portraits. The installation in The Barbican Curve is quite wonderful, an immersive environment in which to view these small, highly detailed paintings. Performing […]
Kamala Ibrahim Ishag at the Serpentine Gallery.
I’ll start the year with a review about another underrepresented artist finally getting some of the exposure she deserves. Kamala Ibrahim Ishag (now in her 80s) has a solo exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery till 29th January. While most of the attention is on her large canvasses, I was moved by her drawings and some […]